


The White Room

by ivoryandhorn



Category: DOGS: Bullets & Carnage
Genre: 1000-3000 words, Character Study, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-10-02
Updated: 2010-10-02
Packaged: 2017-10-12 08:52:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,071
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/123108
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ivoryandhorn/pseuds/ivoryandhorn
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>This is the time between, or perhaps it is the other way around.</p>
            </blockquote>





	The White Room

**Author's Note:**

> Another weird stream-of-consciousness thing, in the same vein as _[The Strongest Man in Ikebukuro](http://archiveofourown.org/works/123095)_. I can't help but feel that these fics are more like especially poetical meta rather than, y'know, _actual fanfic_. I started this when I reread DOGS a while ago (including all the new stuff scanlated since the _last_ time I'd binged on it), then let it sit for a while, before deciding to finish it off since it was nearly done anyway. It's kind of weird, I dunno what I was trying to do with it.

Time passes strangely in the white room.

There are no clocks; the only timepiece is the fluorescent glare of the lights: twelve hours on, twelve hours off. Or so he assumes. It might be more like sixteen hours on, eight hours off—eight hours being the appropriate amount of sleep that a healthy adult male human of his age (whatever it is) requires. Or perhaps the hours are counted in decimal points and minutes according to calculations and equations he never learned, that he doesn't know because he doesn't need to know.

The moment the lights go on, he does calisthenics. The routine changes occasionally, exercises and reps printed in soulless type on equally soulless paper and slipped under the white room door. Black and white; his is a world of monochrome order. Meals rattle through the slot in the door at what he assumes to be regular intervals, perfectly calibrated bars of some tasteless, gritty substance that provide him with all the nutrients and nourishment a healthy adult male human with his particular enhancements who engages in as much physical activity as he does needs.

But all of these things—lights, meals, exercise—are barely ripples the calm sameness of life in the white room. He is a white-haired boy with white-washed skin sitting in a white-walled room, with not even brothers and sisters left to fill the silence around him. His glasses, the only thing of the outside world he is allowed to take into the white room, sit beside him. Arms neatly folded, they wait as he does for the day when he will be allowed to wear them again, in the world that reels by outside the white room's walls. He waits for that day, as they do—curled into himself and sitting on the white room floor. The ache in his folded joints and bent spine hurt no one but himself.

When it's dark, he sleeps. There is a mattress provided for that purpose so that's what he uses it for, stretching out over the spongy surface and gazing up, up into endless dark, waiting for sleep to overtake him. 20/20 night sight is useless here, in the white room; there are no contours or shapes or contrasts for his eyes to catch on. He could almost believe himself free, floating in a void that contains neither wall nor door nor boundary, no expectations and no desires—but just inches from his hand is the cool, slick surface of the white room's wall, a tactile reminder when he needs reminding. He is not free.

When it's light, he does not think. There is nothing in the white room save what he is given, what he brings into it, what he is allowed to bring into it—and while in the white room there is nothing in his head but memories. Out of it, at least, he has orders to keep the memories company, to push them back and hold them at bay. That's the worst part of the white room, he thinks sometimes, despairingly. That there is nothing in it but himself. Each of his memories come to him with landmines hidden, so that re-examining his last assassination mission for possible improvements in technique segues into the shaking of his small hands around a gun that only became comfortable when he wore away his palm to fit it. Killing never came as instinctively to him as it came to Haine ( _Haine_ ) or Lilly ( _Lilly_ ). He must learn. He must improve. He was the one who hid, but now there is no one left to keep him safe but muscle memory and instinct.

When it's dark, it's easier for the memories to sneak up on him. He can't conceive of a life forever spent outside of the white room's walls: he's no Haine. He can't bite the hand that feeds, because that is also the hand that gives him a place, that rests on his collar even if that place is outside the door begging for scraps and that collar digs into the soft parts of his throat. He hasn't the imagination, he hasn't the will. Haine did. Haine _does_. He doesn't know whether he's jealous or resentful or afraid or in awe of Haine. The dark is velvety soft around him, pressing close, demanding answers of him but offering none in turn. There are no distractions this deep in lights-out—not even his glasses, not even the pin-thin outline of the door. Haine's eyes burn the color of Lilly's blood against the insides of his eyelids. He wishes he could fall asleep. He can't. He needs to get his eight hours. He's not sure if he wants them.

Lights-on, and he sits against the white room's wall in his usual position. His hair clings damply to his head; he's had his shower and exercise and meal for the portion of his day that comes after the lights go on, and now there's nothing left to do but sit. Sit, and wait, and look up every now and then at the outline of the door and hope and wait and try desperately not to remember.

Lights-off. He lies in the dark as he always does, willing sleep to come, and receiving the memories he tries to push away during lights-on instead for his pains.

Lights-on, and he would say that it's too soon but time passes strangely here, in this white room that pushes his past forward and removes hope of a future and leaves him with nothing but himself, his glasses, his quiet patience. The white room's door makes no sound when it opens. The world beyond gapes gunmetal and chrome; laboratory colors to match the laboratory smells that assaults his nose, dizzyingly rich after the white room's dull recycled air.

The figure in the doorway extends a hand. For a moment he is afraid, and then enough of the outside world invades the white room and the collar digs in hard enough and he rises, walks to the door, sunglasses dangling loosely from his fingers.

"What time is it?" he asks, the moment he steps outside, and barely hears the answer over the sound of the white room's door slamming shut behind him. It doesn't matter what the answer is, truly, all that matters is that there is _an_ answer—that for now, his time has meaning beyond the flick of an automated switch.


End file.
